Acquios

The Beginning

Day 1

24

AUG/14

Today was the first session of what is going to be a great campaign!

The story began with the adventurers on a boat, travelling through a dark and heavy storm. After some fantastic lightning and thunder sound effects by Julian and Walter, an unnaturally tall wave capsized the party’s boat, and amidst the wreckage, the players were separated from their crew.

A few hours (days maybe?) later, the players found themselves on a beach, and almost immediately after coming to their senses, were mobbed by horse sized giant wasps and swarms of insects. Though we almost unanimously agreed that fighting a horse sized wasp was much worse than a thousand wasp sized horses the battle actually proved otherwise. A smart tactical move was made by Geneva, who cast a Repel Vermin spell allowed for the players to attack the wasps from the relative safety of a protective shield. Unfortunately however, a profound lack of area spells / bombs (where is Axone when you need him?) combined with the uselessness of their physical weapons forced the players to leave a summoned Fire Mephit behind and book it to the treeline to hide in the forest.

After wandering westward through the forest for a bit, the AW and Walter decided to leave Julian and Geneva behind to set up a camp (leading to some tension wink wink and the creation of a heated hot tub) while they scouted the nearby area.

The scouting party passed several suspicious gashes on the sides of trees throughout the forest, they came to an opening with a very large tree covered in some runic symbols about and hour west of the camp. Night was soon approaching, so the scouts marked the location and headed back to camp.

Though very noisy, the first two shifts of the night watch were uneventful. As dawn grew closer however, a distinct shuffling noise was heard moving towards the party. After pelting each other with rocks to wake up, Julian and AW drew their weapons and cast a light spell to identify the intruders — a horde of swamp mummies!

In fact, the AW and Julian were so frightened, that for the opening rounds of the battle they were paralyzed with fear! Fortunately (or unfortunately) the mummies slow speed caused them to only be able to attack Julian’s Eidolon, and the sounds of battle woke up the remaining party members. A long fight then broke out, and after realizing that swamp mummies had damage resistance, high armor class and hit really hard. The players went all out spell wise, with Julian using mass enlarge person to increase the size of the party allowing them to fight toe to toe with the mummies. Luckily however, Geneva, as a divine caster and was able to channel positive energy dealing serious damage to all of the mummies, which supplemented some flail trips by Walter and Falcatta sneaks by AW the rogue.

Afer KO-ing the mummies, the players caught their breath only to realize that some of them had contracted Swamp Mummy Rot! Divine spells came to the rescue again, and a combination of remove curse / disease allowed the party to heal the massive Constitution and Charisma drain.

The game left off with the entire party healed (albeit a bit shaken) and ready to head out into the forest but were left with many questions. Why were they attacked by mummies? Where was the rest of their crew? What exactly happened in the hot tub? Are they alone on the island?